Projects

Theatre

Dambudzo Revisited
by David Pattison (University of Hull)

Using material from his largely autobiographical novels, Dambudzo Revisited looks at the short unhappy life of Dambudzo Marechera. Act One is set in the week before he died. Act Two takes place earlier in a bar in London. The final act is on the day of his death.

Dambudzo ran for 20 performances in November 2007 in Harare's Theatre in the Park, directed by Cont Mhlanga, produced by Daves Guzha, and starring Memory Kumbota as Marechera's conscience. The "other" Dambudzo was played by Mitchell Dzimwasha. Zimbabwe Standard said that it was "a brave attempt at trying to delve deep into the mind of this genius who passed on at 35 years of age on 18 August 1987" (18 November 2007). The play was stopped by the police. A revised version will be presented in Oxford.

A Portrait of the Artist in Black-and-White (University of Oxford)

Written and directed by Dobrota Pucherova

Starring: Ery Nzaramba

This multi-media adaptation of selected prose and poetry by Dambudzo Marechera exploits modernist devices such as montage, symbol, and juxtaposition of images to explore the mind-splitting, surreal experience of Charlie, a Rhodesian student at Oxford in the 1970's. Nothing is as it seems in this experimental play that spirals further and further into the cavernous depths of Marechera's texts where love and hatred, Black and White, and myth, illusion and reality dangerously converge.

Throne of Bayonets (Homegrown Productions, Bulawayo)

Written and directed by Christopher Mlalazi & Raisedon Baya

It is a known fact that Dambudzo Marechera was perhaps the first black African writer to openly criticize Robert Mugabe and his new government. When he came back to Zimbabwe in 1982, Marechera continued to be very critical of Mugabe's rule. This is evident in some of his poetry. Because of his critical writing, Dambudzo was detained so that he could not embarrass Mugabe during the opening of the International Book Fair. Dambudzo was able to see into the future and thus the play seeks to use his poetry and some episodes of his life to tell a tale of an African country on the verge of collapse. It will celebrate Dambudzo's prophetic powers as a writer and his bravery in challenging Zimbabwe's political leaders at a time when everyone was clamouring to praise them.

Blitzkrieg & The Servants' Ball (University of Oxford)

Directed by Sophie Lewis and Matthew Waksman

Marechera wrote Blitzkrieg and The Servants' Ball shortly after his return to Zimbabwe in 1982. Hilariously multi-vocal, the twin plays satirize post-independence corruption, class hierarchy and racial prejudice through a colourful, outspoken cast of characters. The Servants' Ball, the only text Marechera wrote in Shona, presents the "downstairs" world of the servants of the business tycoon Norman Drake, who freely give their opinions on the betrayals of the revolution's socialist ideals. In Blitzkrieg, set in the "upstairs" world of Norman Drake's party, the hypocrisy of multi-racial freedom is played out through adulterous sex inside the toilet and typical Marecheran scatological humour.

Film

A Shred of Identity by Nana Oforiatta-Ayim (London)

Based on Marechera's poem "A Shred of Identity", this film looks at the relativity of hidden human suffering vis-à-vis the evident existential suffering of the artist. It takes its cue from the line 'the poem behind this poem' in that nothing is as it seems on the surface, and that all those apparently so secure in their place in the world suffer as much as the artist who makes his or her existential probings into the basis of their creativity.

I Am the Rape by Heeten Bhagat (Harare)

Dambudzo Marechera wrote the poem "I Am the Rape" in response to racial violence perpetrated by the British Police during a National Party Rally in 1979. This visual interpretation of the poem, set amongst images of Zimbabwe past and present, explores the author's traumatic life. The film comments on the continued relevance of Marechera's work and aims to provoke argument, discomfort and reaction through the juxtaposition of words, images and sounds. In line with Marechera's style, the film rejoices in the anarchic and the abstract in the service of a deeper understanding that is essential to comprehend Marechera's poetic expression.

The Christmas Reunion by Gloria Huwiler (New York)

Based on Marechera's internal monologue, 'The Christmas Reunion', this short film will examine the perilous task set before the man of the house on the eve of their Christmas dinner of killing a goat. The narrator questions the logic that avoiding his daunting challenge will be in any way emasculating.

The Anatomy of Hunger: A DVD Documentary on Contemporary Zimbabwean Writing

by Tinashe Mushakavanhu (Zimbabwe)

In 1985, director Olley Tsino Maruma interviewed Zimbabwean writers about their work for his important documentary After the Hunger and Drought. More than twenty years on, The Anatomy of Hunger will map the situation in Zimbabwean writing today, interviewing writers, critics and publishers. Who are the new generation of writers and what have they learned from the older writers? What has been the state of Zimbabwean creative writing after independence? What are their creative sources and resources? What has been Marechera's influence? Is Marechera still relevant today? The documentary will become a visual archive of Zimbabwean literary landscape, giving an essential first-hand account of the developments of post-independence Zimbabwean writing.

Painting

Fisani Nkomo (Zimbabwe)

Victor Mavedzenge (London)

Photography

Ernst Schade (Portugal)

Music

Pascal Makonese (Manchester)

Chimanimani (UK)

Ollie Thomas (Oxford)

Sculpture

"Dambudzo Marechera and Shona sculpture" by Jonathan Zilberg

It was in 1988 during my preliminary doctoral research on the invention of Shona sculpture when I first came across Dambudzo Marechera's inspirationally radical expressive work by way of that fine glossy booklet by Flora Veit-Wild and Ernst Schade, Dambudzo Marechera: 4 June 1952-18 August 1987 (Harare: Baobab Books, 1988). As I had quickly found that black Zimbabweans had little or no interest in Shona sculpture and was looking into why this was so, I was intrigued to see in the photograph of Dambudzo in his study in Harare a small sculpture on the window-sill. As chance would have it, I soon therafter met Flora and Ernst at Tengenenge and was able to ask them about it. Ernst laughed and said something like: "Oh, Dambudzo felt that Shona sculpture was just something for white men", but if I recall his words were much stronger than that. I also recall that he added that the sculpture meant nothing to him except that Bernard Takawira had given it to him as a token of respect.

Needless to say this was not particularly surprising to me and over the intervening twenty years I have continued to collect evidence along these lines as to how it is that if Shona sculpture is such a vaunted national cultural asset then why are the Shona so indifferent to it - unlike Ernst, who came back excitedly later on that day with a wonderful little stone sculpture by Square Kambeyo of a boy masturbating which I suppose now lives in his house, being an inspirational conversation piece and a most unusual Shona sculpture, especially with Square being of Malawian descent.

But in all seriousness, putting aside the issue of why Shona sculpture is so systematically uninteresting to those in the metropolitan creative art world and the way in which its sales so typically revolve around the puerile commodification of Shona mythology and history, it was simply one line of Dambudzo's that I read in that booklet which I have never forgotten. All these years it has sung out to me like an anthem: "Either you are a writer [read artist] or you are not. If you are a writer for a specific nation or a specific race, then fuck you."

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